


Switchblade

by Neyiea



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Bruce is mortified with himself A Lot, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Dreams and Nightmares, General dubious-ness, Jerome is besotted but he's still a bad guy, Knifeplay, M/M, Possessive Behavior, The most important Valeyne tag, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25141786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Sometimes Bruce dreams of knives, and he is often left feeling shame upon awakening for things that he has no control over. The situation takes a turn for the worse when he’s threatened with blades in real life by the person who, not coincidentally, is always the one threatening his life as he dreams.When his heart starts to race because Jerome Valeska has a knife pressed against his throat it's not because he's afraid. Jerome eventually, damningly, figures that out.
Relationships: Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 87
Kudos: 280





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SofterSoftest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofterSoftest/gifts).



> For SofterSoftest, you know why. ;)
> 
> As an aside: this is a little more grim (???) than my usual flavour of Valeyne. Or it least it felt that way when I was hammering it out, lol. It's probably comparable to the beginning of the selfish and obscene 'verse, before Jerome and Bruce get all lovingly codependent.

Sometimes Bruce dreams of knives.

There are memories laced in with the dreams; an arm keeping him pinned, a chest at his back, a smiling mouth at his ear whispering things Bruce cannot make out over the pounding of his heart, the feeling of a cool blade pressed against his throat. A weapon being raised, wild eyes locking with his, firelight acting as a halo and glinting off of dangerous edges, Bruce caught in a madman’s shadow, mind racing with ways to buy time. A mirror in front of him, a menacing figure looming behind, a knife brought up to his neck and Bruce shifting back to get away from it, but that only makes him press closer to the one threatening him.

But the memories evolve, occasionally; under bright lights the weapon raises to his cheek, and the voice in his ear goes soft as he sobs, tears falling and dripping onto metal. In the firelight the wild eyes never leave his and the knife is dragged partway down his sternum, his sweater parts with a whisper to showcase the delicate skin of his neck, and the skin underneath is shallowly scratched in a way that makes his breath catch even before the pointed tip settles dangerously against the hollow of his throat. In front of the mirror his assailant doesn’t stab the face-painter to bloody his fingers and draw a frown on Bruce’s face, but he instead hooks the knife in the corner of Bruce’s mouth and starts to cut, and Bruce is left trembling and unable to speak as their eyes meet in the mirror and blood begins dripping down his chin.

Sometimes, very rarely, they are not memories at all; those are the ones that leave him feeling the most ill at ease. 

It was one thing to have nightmares about actual, terrible things that had happened to you. It was one thing for those nightmares to take a new path that your sleeping mind had no control over. It was one thing to wake up—heart racing, disoriented, so sure that you could feel blood dripping from the corner of your mouth that your knees were weak—from fragments of a half-forgotten dream, sure that you could put it behind you just as you had put the real situation behind you.

It was another thing all together for your mind to grip onto fleeting moments of terror and turn them into something that left you shaking for all the wrong reasons. 

Bruce awakens from such a dream with a sudden intake of air. He twists onto his side, briefly curling into himself, hands pressing over the untouched skin of his hip.

In his dream the point of a knife had been pressed against him and lazily spun, slowly drilling into him, beads of blood dripping down his leg. In his dream he hadn’t minded. In his dream he’d begun to feel hot. 

In his dream Jerome’s lips had become wet with the blood that he’d kissed off of Bruce’s thigh.

The memories start to fade away, leaving behind nothing but flashes of a blade on skin, blood-smeared lips, and conflicting feelings of desire and unease. Bruce brings a trembling hand up to his mouth, wondering if his mind had conjured up beliefs that anything else had been stained red only to be forgotten immediately upon awakening, wondering if he even really wanted to know for certain.

He slips out of bed, splashes cold water onto his still-too-warm cheeks, and continues on with his day as he usually does after his mind has decided to fixate on terrible things when he is unable to do anything about it, and eventually the lingering fragments of the dream are forcefully pushed to the darkest corner of his mind with other mostly-forgotten visions.

In his dreams it is usually him being hurt or threatened.

But that is not always the case.

Half a year after Jerome comes back from the dead Bruce has the first dream where he is the one with a weapon.

But it isn’t a knife.

He means to discard the mirror shard, to throw it aside and leave without looking back, but before he can do that a pair of hands clasp around his own. Bruce’s attention breaks and he looks down, away from the alarming mess that is his own reflection. Jerome’s eyes bore into his as he calmly guides the tip of the shard to settle against his chest, over his heart.

“Let it out,” he says. Bruce tries to draw back but Jerome’s hands grip even tighter around his own in response. Bruce can feel the skin on his palms begin to split open from the increase in pressure. His blood begins to trickle down the sharp edges. It collects at the tip. It stains Jerome’s shirt.

Bruce is trembling. Tears are beginning to well up in his eyes. Under Jerome’s steady guidance the mirror shard begins to slowly press in, deeper, deeper, through cloth and skin and muscle and bone without breaking. Jerome doesn’t look away, and neither can he. Bruce leans, as if being drawn closer, and eventually he can no longer see the gruesome sight of the shard imbedded in Jerome’s chest being held in place by both of their hands. All he can see is Jerome’s face.

“That’s it,” Jerome praises. His gaze is soft. His eyes are lit up with something that makes Bruce’s stomach twist. His body is warm and firm between Bruce’s legs. “That’s it.” His grip is still tight. Bruce’s hands are still bleeding. Their blood is mixing together. “I knew you could do it.” He tilts his chin upwards, and Bruce is so close now that their lips brush, feather-light.

When Bruce wakes up his vision is blurry with tears and he’s disconcertedly, disgustingly hard.

It’s not the first time that a dream about Jerome has left him aching. 

x-x-x

The unfortunate thing about having dreams where someone you know tries to hurt you which your mind and body decide to interpret as being erotic is that, sometimes, that person has actually tried to hurt you in the past and will actually try to hurt you in the future. Bruce supposes he should have expected that this would happen eventually, given Arkham Asylum’s poor track record, but he’s been too busy lately to worry about the possibility of Jerome breaking out of Arkham and managing to get his hands on him again. 

And he’s been far too self-conscious, when awake, to think about Jerome threatening him with a knife for old time’s sake.

Not that preparing himself for this inevitability would have done him much good, as it was really just coincidence that Bruce happened to be in the bank when a flood of Maniax swept in. And it was bad luck that he hadn’t been able to hide before he was spotted by one of them. And it was Jerome’s fault—so fixated on Bruce that even lunatics and idiots would notice—that they decided to literally push him into the open arms of the man who’s tried more than once to kill him.

An arm keeping him pinned against a chest, a smiling mouth grazing against the shell of his ear. Bruce is fairly certain he would be able to drop and flip Jerome over his shoulder if his knees weren’t suddenly so weak; and also if there weren’t so many guns and cameras and other people watching. He leans his weight against Jerome instead and struggles to keep his breathing even. 

“Well, well, look at what we have here,” Jerome happily whispers in his ear, the flat of his blade tapping restlessly against Bruce’s collar bone. He’d had a gun, but apparently he’d decided that Bruce was deserving of a downgrade. Bruce isn’t sure how he feels about that; glad not to have a gun against his temple, or humiliated that the sight of a blade in Jerome’s hand had made his breath catch. Jerome starts stepping back, drawing Bruce out of the line of sight of a dozen other concerned hostages and his busy, power-mad Maniax as he turns behind a corner into the hallway that he and his followers had sprung out from. “Smile for the camera,” he croons, and in his peripherals Bruce can see Jerome’s head tilt upward to smirk at the currently unhelpful security feature. “Doesn’t this bring back memories, Brucie?”

No. Yes. The best and the worst memories. Real and fake memories. It makes Bruce’s thoughts whirr, incomprehensible. 

“I asked you a question,” he prompts after several moments of silence. The tip of the knife pokes through Bruce’s sweater, too lightly to do more than leave an imperceptible scratch, but the contact makes him jolt and press harder against Jerome. The arm around him wraps even tighter in response, refusing to let Bruce retreat afterwards.

Bruce’s heart is racing, and it’s not because he’s afraid.

He wishes that it was because he was afraid; that would be a normal reaction to something like this. 

“I wish it didn’t,” Bruce mumbles, face hot. At least Jerome is not able to look directly at him, situated behind Bruce as he is. He hopes his flush doesn’t turn up too noticeably on the black and white footage of the security camera when it’s undoubtedly reviewed later. “Although usually there are higher stakes when you get your hands on me. This scheme seems a little lowbrow for you.”

Shot-up police stations, live broadcasts, bombs, and terrible carnivals. When compared to things like that bank robbery seemed more than a little simplistic.

“Gotta pay the bills somehow, darlin’,” Jerome chuckles. His chest rumbles with his laughter, an unexpectedly pleasant sensation, and Bruce is once against reminded of how very close they are. His cheeks go even hotter. “Always nice to have a familiar face as a hostage, though. Can you believe that chance brought us together again?”

“I think it’s less like chance and more like a curse.”

“You believe in curses? How cute,” Jerome drawls, and he brings his knife up to Bruce’s neck. His blade barely grazes across flesh and—

A reedy, weak sound rushes out from between Bruce’s clenched teeth.

Jerome goes very, very still.

Bruce burns in absolute mortification.

“You never made a sound like that when I threatened you before,” Jerome comments, sounding terribly curious. Or maybe terrible and curious. He hums under his breath in contemplation, the blade continuing to rest against the thin skin of Bruce’s throat. “It’s very… Damsel in distress of you.”

“Jerome.” There’s an edge to his tone, Bruce hopes it sounds more like a warning than an appeal as his mind starts to race. He wants to say; the police will be here soon, you’ll just get caught sooner if you try and kidnap me now, I’m going to stop you. He doesn’t get a chance to say anything, though, as an unrestrained barrage of bullets being shot into the ceiling cuts him off.

There is screaming and laughter as the Maniax begin rushing towards the hallway Jerome had taken him into.

“If I kidnap you now Jimbo’s going to be all over this, he’s probably already on his way,” Jerome mutters into his ear, sounding unhappy. “Maybe it’s a curse after all. Neither of us get what we want, huh, Bruce?” The pressure of his knife is not enough to break skin, but Bruce still bites his lip to keep from making any other incriminating noises as the first several Maniax round the corner, blazing past as if their illustrious leader wasn’t calmly threatening the richest teenager in Gotham.

“It’s no fun if I kill you like this,” Jerome murmurs to himself and Bruce, maybe finally overcome with better judgement in the wake of the reminder that Jerome definitely still thought about murdering him, stomps as hard as he can on Jerome’s foot.

Jerome curses sharply. The knife nicks his skin in his rush to get away. Jerome’s wild laughter echoes behind him as he runs, as if he’s thrilled that Bruce had managed to free himself.

It echoes in his head later that night as he tosses and turns in bed for hours; restless for reasons he doesn’t want to think about, shame and a vulgar sort of yearning twisting inside of him.

When he closes his eyes he can feel Jerome’s chest against his back, Jerome’s mouth against his ear, Jerome’s knife against his neck. It’s almost too easy for him to think about what might have happened if Jerome had even the slightest idea about what that had made Bruce feel. Stubbornness and dignity—and a very real fear that he’d lose respect for himself—has kept him from acting on the not-uncommon after-effects of his dreams. He always waits it out, laying completely still on his back and refusing to touch himself. His body eventually seems to get the message that nothing is going to happen, and everything finally calms down. 

‘Neither of us get what we want, huh, Bruce?’

As if Jerome had any idea about the things Bruce both wanted and was repulsed by.

He hates feeling so torn, he hates feeling so hot, he hates that his mind has chosen to become preoccupied with danger instead of normal things. He hates that he’d felt the deep rumble of Jerome’s laughter and had _liked_ it.

‘Darlin’,’ resonates in his mind. The little cut on his neck stings. He thinks, suddenly and uncontrollably, about lips brushing the broken skin and gaining a red tint. 

He pulls a pillow over his head to muffle a frustrated scream before storming out of bed. If he can’t sleep then he may as well train.

The next time Jerome thinks that he’s got the upper hand just because he’s looming over Bruce like the world’s most maniacal storm-cloud Bruce is going to throw him over his shoulder whether or not there are witnesses. Surely he could get away with claiming he’d been learning judo for self-defense purposes without anyone thinking to question it too deeply. He thinks of it briefly; turning and using momentum to pull Jerome on his back and over his shoulder, upsetting his equilibrium and leaving him wide-eyed and breathless on the floor at Bruce’s feet. 

Bruce wasn’t a defenseless little boy, which Jerome really should be well-aware of considering what had happened on the night that the lights went out, but maybe he needed a reminder. 

When Bruce finally falls asleep, the sky tinted pink with sunrise, he dreams of Jerome laid out flat on his back. His eyes, when they look up at Bruce, are filled with a familiar, uncanny light.

Fascination. Curiosity. Hunger.

Like when they’d been in the maze and Bruce had been braced over top of him, teetering on an edge with a mirror shard in his hand.

“That’s it,” he praises lowly. His eyes are dark. His pupils are blown. “Let it out.”

x-x-x

The thing about preparing for a confrontation with Jerome is unfortunately that he—just like nearly every other rogue within the city limits—enjoys being sporadic enough to keep citizens perpetually on their toes. There was a difference between having a set theme and being predictable enough that you’d get caught before getting anything done. 

So the next time Bruce and Jerome cross paths Jerome is busy threatening the life of a city councilor—one who’s actually attempting to get Arkham more funding so that it can someday become reputable instead of infamous. Bruce had wanted to meet with her during the charity function in order to gauge whether or not her interests were genuine, and had followed her into the home’s library when he saw her going off by herself—and thus cannot torment Bruce in person, so instead one of his Maniax makes an attempt at it. 

Bruce’s breath does not hitch as a knife is held against his throat. Bruce’s heart doesn’t stutter sickly in his chest. Bruce does not feel the heat of longing or the cold of dread. He supposes he’s glad that there’s only one person who can threaten him in a way that will make his mind careen into thoughts he’d really prefer not to have.

Jerome’s first of two Maniax—in the library, at least, doubtlessly there were more streaming up the grand staircase to the second floor in order to steal jewelry and threaten lives—doesn’t know what hit him. He’s tall but thin and Bruce, who’s used to practicing with Alfred in full padding, is able to execute the throw perfectly. The knife in his hand clatters to the floor, and Bruce kicks it into the corner of the room. The other lacky who had been guarding the door comes at him, but Bruce is able to disarm her quickly and then uses a leg reap to unbalance her. The throws aren’t enough to keep the Maniax down for long, but thankfully Bruce has more than a little experience with actual fighting under his belt by now, and two-against-one is not the most unfair disadvantage that he’s ever faced.

Jerome and the councilor stare at him when he’s done. Jerome’s eyes are fever-bright, his expression terrible and curious. The councilor just looks dumbstruck.

There goes the element of surprise. 

“I practice judo,” Bruce says in wary explanation, wanting to put an end to the tense, prolonged silence. “For self-defense purposes.” 

Jerome finally barks out an unrestrained laugh, seeming delighted by this turn of events.

“Of all the charity functions in all the world, what are the chances that you’re here on the night that I decide to have some fun?” His arms are still tight around the councilor and the barrel of his gun is still pressed against her temple, but he’s not paying attention to her any more. The weight of his scrutinizing gaze rests solely on Bruce.

“This is Gotham, Jerome, and I’m Bruce Wayne.” Bruce manages, tone purposefully dull. My company is the machine that keeps the cogs of Gotham running, rings in his head without prompting. “I’d say the chances were pretty high.”

He wonders if he hadn’t happened to follow the councilor to the library in his attempt to speak with her away from the other Gotham socialites if she would be dead by now. Her plans for Arkham were, undoubtedly, not encouraged by people like Jerome who knew how to use the institution’s corruptions and weaknesses to their advantage. 

“You have a point,” Jerome drawls, sounding oddly charmed. His eyes dart down to the pallid woman caught in his arms and a frown tugs at his lips before his gaze lifts back to Bruce, assessing.

Bruce cannot come forward, worried that Jerome will pull the trigger. Bruce cannot leave, worried that Jerome will pull the trigger. Bruce cannot wait for more Maniax to show up, or wait for the police, or—

“Don’t suppose you want to switch places?”

“What?”

“I’m an impractical man, Brucie,” he croons the nick-name, saccharinely sweet. The tone makes Bruce’s hair stand on end. “But even I know that it’s better to have you as a hostage rather than letting you run free. Who knows what kinds of trouble you’ll get into if I leave you alone?” He sounds a mix of irritated and amused. His eyes are calculating. He’s looked at Bruce like this before, more than once, whenever Bruce did something strange or stupid or brave enough to catch his interest. “I’ve unfortunately only got enough room in my arms for one of you. What do you say? Wanna—”

“Yes,” Bruce cuts him off. “Let her go, and then I’ll come to you.”

“How about you come to me, and then I let her go?”

“Fine.” 

“Before you do, though, I’m pretty sure the first guy you took down has some zip ties in his coat pocket. Take them out for me, would you?”

Bruce complies, holding in a sigh.

Jerome has the councilor apply the ties to his wrists. “Behind his back. I get the feeling he might know how to break out of them if his hands are in front.” Her hands are shaking as she does it. Bruce can hear her choking on sobs.

Bruce is pretty sure she’s going to leave Gotham and never come back after this. Even without killing her Jerome is going to get what he wants.

“Perfect. All wrapped up and helpless for me,” Jerome coos, folding an arm around Bruce’s shoulders, pressing the gun to his temple. “The suit makes me think of the first time we met.”

Trepidation floods through Bruce. His mind buzzes and heart seizes in his chest. Even if his reaction to it would be embarrassing he thinks he would have preferred a knife after all. 

“See you later, councilwoman,” Jerome says grandly as he backs up to an open window, and he hauls Bruce upward to step onto the frame. “Me and Brucie here have some catching up to do.”

And then, easy as pie, he steps out into thin air and Bruce is dragged with him. Bruce feels his heart in his throat as they begin to slip away from the warm light of the library, but their descent is abruptly stopped by the roof of a tall catering van.

“You didn’t think I’d actually let you _fall_ to your death, did ya?” Jerome asks, amused.

“Don’t think I’d die from this height,” he manages to answer after catching his breath. “Break a leg, maybe. And I absolutely believe you wouldn’t mind that.”

“A cast would slow you down a little whenever you felt like messing with my plans,” Jerome responds agreeably. He leans down to whisper in Bruce’s ear, “But it would also make you less fun to capture. A sitting duck.”

Bruce feels like a sitting duck right now; hands bound behind his back, a gun tapping pointedly against him, Jerome’s body a warm contrast to the night air, absolutely no sirens going off in the distance. Jerome wraps both arms around Bruce’s waist as they walk to the front of the van, seeming to revel in how utterly trapped Bruce is.

“Come on, Brucie, we’ve still got to get to the ground.” He pulls Bruce down, sitting with their legs hanging over the windshield. Bruce is practically in his lap, and his cheeks start to burn as he wonders when this scene will inevitably make its way into his reoccurring dreams, and how it will take a turn towards something more disgustingly intimate. 

Or disgusting and intimate; like bloody kisses. 

They slide down, their feet finally reach solid ground.

Bruce is shoved into the back of a car just as the first sirens become a legible whine, and Jerome cackles as he slips in beside him, switching out his gun for a walkie-talkie.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” he gleefully orders, and in a matter of seconds every window on the first floor shatters outwards.

Everyone had been on the second floor, or at least they had been when Bruce had made his way to the library, but his stomach still twists into an anxious knot because from the broken windows he can see a red-orange glow. As the car begins to pull away he can make out that the entire first floor is lit up from inside, and he can only hope that the fire department is already en route. 

Pop music filters through the car’s front speakers, and even though the volume is low it creates a jarring distortion between what Bruce is seeing and what he’s hearing. 

“Isn’t it something to see a big house like this get smashed to pieces and burn?” Jerome sighs happily, leaning heavily against Bruce, pressing him into the window. “Doesn’t it make you _feel?_ ”

“Feel what?”

“I dunno. Everything, all at once. Powerful. Terrible. Kind of turned on, if I’m being honest.” Jerome drops the walkie-talkie and digs a hand into Bruce’s hair. The orange light of a distant but quickly growing fire makes him look even more dangerous than usual. The driver seems content to ignore them both for now, and Bruce is quietly grateful that he’s not turning around to sneer at his leader’s favourite volunteer as Jerome pushes uncaringly into his personal space. “You didn’t make any cute damsel in distress noises this time.”

Even if it’s jarring he’s glad that there’s music helping to cover up their soft conversation. He doesn’t need any more people thinking of him as a _damsel in distress._

“Do I seem to be in distress?”

“Yes,” Jerome says through his bared teeth. He’s smiling so wide. His eyes are so vivid. The firelight fades and the shadows painted across the planes of his face only make his eyes seem brighter in contrast. “You were trembling in my arms when you thought we were going to fall, but you weren’t…” His expression darkens, eyes scanning quickly over Bruce. His hand winds tighter in Bruce’s hair, quickly turning uncomfortable. “It wasn’t like the last time, when you pressed yourself right up against me to try and get away from…” 

Bruce purses his lips, refusing to give any sort of clue. Unfortunately, Jerome was generally pretty quick on the uptake.

“Bruce, darlin’,” he coos. The pop on the radio transitions into a love-song. “Don’t tell me you’re more scared of _knives_ than you are of _guns?_ ”

That’s not it, but it’s a little too close to the truth for Bruce to breathe an internal sigh of relief. Bruce purses his lips tighter together. Behind him his hands curl into fists. He refuses to look away from Jerome.

Jerome seems to take that as a yes. 

He laughs, low and under his breath, he’s close enough that his air puffs against Bruce’s face.

“Oh man,” Jerome crows, finally letting go of Bruce’s hair and drawing back. “You are just too much, Brucie.” He pats himself down, digging through the pockets of his jacket. A lighter, a jeweled bracelet, a ring of keys, a pack of cards, he digs and digs, allowing the items he discards fall to the floor of the car until he finally pulls out a switchblade and flicks it open.

“It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Jerome tells him, eyes scorching as he watches Bruce’s face as if enraptured by him. The knife settles against skin and Bruce pushes himself back against the car door, clenching his legs together and hating himself for having to do it. “Think you’ll survive it?”

“You wouldn’t kill me like this,” Bruce grits out, blood starting to rush. “It’s not enough of a spectacle for you.”

“True,” Jerome agrees, and he starts leaning in closer again. So close that if there weren’t a knife at his throat Bruce could lean up to kiss him. The thought is just as horrifying as it is electrifying. “I could hurt you, though. Just a little bit, just enough, _just right._ ”

A whine builds up in Bruce’s throat, he tries to choke it back down without complete success. Jerome’s ensuing laughter is a rumble that he feverishly wishes he could feel.

“Tell me honestly, Bruce,” Jerome starts casually, his free hand coming to rest on Bruce’s thigh. Bruce’s entire body jolts, far too telling. If he can’t get a hold of himself Jerome is going to figure out that it’s not fear that’s making Bruce’s breath hitch. “Do you ever think about the other times I’ve held a knife to your throat?”

“Yes,” slips out, unbidden.

His face burns.

Jerome, unlike last time, can actually _see_ the flush spread across his cheeks. 

He blinks, at first seeming startled that Bruce had answered at all. Then his eyes rove over Bruce’s face again, his eyebrows slowly raising towards his hairline as his mind starts to race to find reasons for why Bruce might be reacting like this. 

“You do?” His voice is soft. He presses the knife a little harder into skin. The car turns. Bruce feels a stinging sensation and he can’t hold back a weak, thin cry. “I do, too,” he admits quietly, like it’s a secret.

Bruce feels hot and oversensitive. A new shallow cut adorns his neck, blood sluggishly beading up. His vision is blurring. He wants Jerome to touch him. He wants to open the door behind him and tuck and roll onto the pavement to get away.

“You look…” Jerome leans even closer, and Bruce can hardly breathe. Their foreheads brush together. It feels intimate. It feels nice. It feels like another thing that’s going to end up haunting him as he sleeps. “Like something I’d like to ruin.”

“That’s not surprising,” Bruce rasps, feeling as though he’s struggling to keep his head above water. He’s on the verge of drowning and Jerome will happily watch him sink underneath the waves. “You’ve tried to kill me before, remember?”

“Not kill,” Jerome says lowly. “Ruin.”

His hand abruptly shifts up Bruce’s thigh and Bruce bites his lip hard enough to bleed when Jerome’s palm comes in contact with his half-hard cock. He clenches his eyes shut, and Jerome’s wicked laughter taints the sparse air between their mouths.

“Bruce, darlin’,” he croons under his breath, voice tempered with faux-compassion. His palm grinds down against Bruce, evidently too keyed up or too cruel for a slow start. “Do you want to be ruined by me?”

“The driver,” Bruce whispers furiously. He can’t bear to look. Can’t bear the thought that someone else might be seeing him like this. “Jerome, stop, please, the driver—”

“I asked you a question.” His palm presses harder and Bruce bucks up against the pressure, fists clenching tight enough that his nails are digging bloody crescents into his palms.

“I wish I didn’t,” he replies, voice an unsteady warble. “I don’t—I don’t want you to hurt me, Jerome,” he lies, “and I don’t want to hurt you—”

“Hurt me?” Jerome leans in, mouth brushing against Bruce’s ear. There’s a knife at his throat and a hand on his cock, and Bruce can feel shameful tears building up in his eyes because he _likes_ it. “How would you hurt me?” The curious note is back in his voice, but there’s something else there, too. Hot and wretched and full of wonder. 

Bruce’s breath catches in his throat. He couldn’t say it, not even if he wanted to.

“Would you hurt me like you did on my special night? Or would it be even worse?” Jerome draws back to look at him. His eyes are dark. His pupils are blown. Bruce wants to press a kiss to the hand holding a knife against his throat. Bruce wants to press a kiss to the flat of the knife. Bruce wants to kiss him. Bruce wants to kiss— “What sorts of terrible, gross things have you been thinking about when you’re all alone, Bruce?”

He shakes his head, unable to speak without starting to cry. And he refuses to actually start crying. He’s not a weak little boy anymore. He’s not. He’s just overwhelmed and haunted and _he wants._

The blade of Jerome’s knife taps restlessly against his throat. Jerome’s hand slides back down his thigh.

“In twenty minutes or so we’ll arrive at my little hideaway,” Jerome informs him with a smirk. “And I’m going to make you spill—” His knife digs into Bruce’s skin, on the verge of splitting flesh. Jerome’s expression is lit up with a manic, distressing fondness that steals Bruce’s breath. “—everything.”

Bruce hates that he believes him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just start by saying that I was not expecting so much positive feedback on this, aadskladsjkldskl. (My entire motivation behind writing this fic is just... Friend likes mouth!knife. Knife in mouth. Nice. Will write more of it.) Thank you for your comments, I had to, like, hide my flustered face behind my hands.
> 
> Moving on; there's a part in this chapter where Jerome is the most mean that he will be (though his threats are more to force Bruce's hand than anything else), but hey, after that there's nowhere to go but up. (Sorry for once again causing you emotional distress, Bruce, I still love you I swear.)

The unfortunate thing, apparently, about ignoring the not-uncommon after-effects of the dangerously erotic dreams that you tended to have about the man who is probably your worst enemy is that you never really have the outlet that your body desires. You can run, and train, and study, and try to forget, but a longing that has not ever been sated lurks under your skin, steadily building up over time.

Bruce’s dreams had all started as simple nightmares before transforming into something else, or before the feelings he had while dreaming morphed into something that wasn’t pure terror or dismay. He’s been dreaming of Jerome, one way or another, for a year.

A year is a long time for anything to build up. A year of twisted, aching want is almost too much to withstand.

Bruce wonders if he should have given in and started dealing with himself after waking up hard after all, because maybe then he wouldn’t have become so obviously effected by Jerome. Or maybe he would have been even more effected. It’s difficult to say. And Bruce will never know, now.

“And then,” Jerome continues to the driver, “I made him do the special clown dance.”

The driver laughs, long and hard and awful, loud enough that the love-song being crooned on the radio is drowned out by the racket. Jerome snickers under his breath, pleased with himself.

Bruce hates him.

Bruce also, distressingly, doesn’t _only_ hate him. 

Life would be so much simpler if he’d only ever been attracted to girls. Or if the one guy he was attracted to hadn’t made multiple attempts on his life and the lives of people who he cared about. Or just wasn’t a bad person, in general.

Unfortunately, Jerome is who he is. Bruce can’t change him any more than he can change what Jerome makes him feel. 

“Nothing like public humiliation to bring a team together.” His sharp gaze darts down to Bruce’s face, and his smile widens. “I wish you could have seen it, Bruce. You look like you need a few good laughs.”

“You laugh enough for the both of us,” Bruce mutters, stomach churning. He really, really hopes that public humiliation isn’t what Jerome has in store for him. 

Jerome’s arm is slung around his shoulder, deceptively friendly, and his body is still pressing Bruce right up against the car door. Jerome’s other hand is still holding a knife to his throat. Jerome’s long leg is hooked over Bruce’s knee, because forcefully spreading Bruce’s legs apart had obviously amused him. The situation is dire, absolutely deplorable.

If the driver happens to look back he might see the incriminating tent at the front of Bruce’s pants, because despite how awful this situation is Bruce is still hard. 

“I should have made you ride in my lap,” Jerome whispers hotly into his ear. “What do you think you would have preferred: facing me, or facing away from me?”

“Neither,” Bruce hisses, legs jerking, mind buzzing. The love-song on the radio crossfades into something with a fast beat and vapid lyrics and the driver actually turns the volume up, humming along, fingers tapping against the wheel. Bruce is glad that Jerome’s followers are mostly idiots. If they were actually as perceptive as Jerome was then Gotham would have been doomed long ago. If they were even half as perceptive as Jerome was Bruce would already be dealing with public humiliation and a strong desire to fade out of existence and never be seen again.

“Neither?” Jerome echoes in open disbelief. 

Bruce looks out the window, the cold glass soothing against his hot cheek, unable to keep himself from thinking about it now that Jerome has brought it up.

His legs astride Jerome’s lap, just as his legs had once been astride Jerome’s chest. The last time Bruce had been over top of him like that he had been the one with the upper hand. He had placed himself there voluntarily in order to land blow after blow against Jerome’s wretched, smiling face. Jerome’s body had been warm and firm between his legs—not that Bruce had noticed that in the heat of that particular moment—and it would be, again. With his hands bound behind him he’d have to lean against Jerome for balance. With his hands bound behind him—

“I guess it would be up to me, anyways, being the one in control and all. Hmm.” He rests his cheek against Bruce’s temple, nuzzling against him. “Facing me, then. Your eyes are so pretty when you’re distressed, and I bet you’d get so red from embarrassment once the driver noticed the position you were in. I’d want to be able to see your face flush.” He turns, lips grazing against Bruce’s overheated skin. “You’d be mortified, wouldn’t you? Maniax talk. News would spread. Everyone would know.”

Anger and horror swell up inside of him and Bruce bites the inside of his cheek, clenching his eyes shut.

The arm around his shoulders shifts. Jerome’s hand grips at his chin and forces his head to turn. Bruce glares at him.

Jerome looks weirdly enamored. 

“I’d hurt you just right,” he vows, “and touch you in so many bad, naughty places. You’re so tightly wound, Bruce, I bet it wouldn’t take much to make you fall to pieces. We’re both going to get what we want tonight.” He hums again, shifting restlessly. His foot swings, tapping a rhymical beat against the insides of Bruce’s ankles. “I could make you come in your pants; maybe by you riding my thigh, maybe by letting you rub yourself against my hand, maybe by making you filthy promises that I intend to keep, all while holding a blade to your pretty pink throat,” his voice takes on a raspy quality, and Bruce has to fight to look unaffected. “Wouldn’t that be such a precious, embarrassing situation? I bet you’d be so sweetly self-conscious about it all.”

—the awful knowledge that Jerome wasn’t the only one who would see the position that Bruce was in. He wouldn’t be able to stand it, not even if Jerome gave Bruce everything that he wanted—

“You’d be so stunning, all flushed and trembling and _wanting_. I’ve never really imagined you looking like that before, mostly I think of you as being…” He trails off, fingers slipping from their place on his chin to draw across Bruce’s mouth. It makes Bruce think of the carnival. It makes Bruce think of the dreams where Jerome’s knife slips into his mouth. It makes Bruce’s heart thunder in his chest. “Helpless but stubbornly resistive. Cute, in a way. Kind of like you were when we first met.” He pushes his fingers past Bruce’s lips, but Bruce keeps his teeth clamped firmly shut and distantly contemplates what Jerome might do if Bruce bit him. “Usually bleeding, but what else did you expect? Although you surprised me on my special night you were still so obviously _soft_ , so even when I knew what you were capable of my thoughts couldn’t help but twist you into something weaker than you really are.” His fingers draw back down, pressing hard against his lower lip before retreating. 

Bruce feels like he’s being teased. Toyed with. He wonders if Jerome is ever going to kiss him, or if Bruce is going to have to be the one to make the first move. He hates that he’s even thinking about it. He hates that they’re not alone. He hates this entire situation. 

“Most of the time, anyway,” Jerome amends. “But even when I thought of you as violent and capable, you were more interesting to me than you were stunning. I think it’s going to be difficult to stop thinking of you as gorgeous, now that I’ve seen what you look like when you _look at me the way that you have been_ ,” he purrs, leaning closer. “I’d happily turn you into a gorgeous mess, Bruce. If everything got to be too much for you I’d even let you cry against my shoulder.”

“I’m not going to cry,” the protest is instinctive, and there’s no heat behind it.

All the heat in Bruce’s body is either pooled between the junction of his thighs or in his cheeks. Not even his anger is burning brightly anymore, the flame of it overshadowed by a different, radiant blaze. 

He’s never wanted anyone so badly.

He wants to curl up and disappear. 

“Maybe not from pain,” Jerome says under his breath. “Maybe not from sadness. There’s more than one way to reduce someone to tears, darlin’.”

It’s a promise. It’s a threat. It makes Bruce break out into goosebumps.

“I’m going to give you _a choice_.” Jerome looks so pleased with himself. Bruce wants to punch the expression off of his face. Bruce still, infuriatingly, wants to kiss him despite everything. “Which is very, very kind of me. I don’t allow people to make choices,” he says in explanation, as if Bruce would really expect anything different from a literal _cult leader_. “I make choices for them, and they either go along with it or they regret it.”

Did they live to regret it? Or did they die regretting it?

Bruce swallows, throat suddenly dry.

Probably both. 

“What is it, then?” His voice is softer than he’d like. He’s allowing himself to become too caught up in the situation he’s in. This isn’t a dream with no consequences. This is his real, actual life. He doesn’t want to live to regret anything or die regretting anything, but he’s not entirely sure that’s possible unless something big happens very soon; the engine suddenly dying, a car crash, a police blockade on the road ahead. All seem equally unlikely. 

“You said something of _great interest_ to me, and then you rudely didn’t explain yourself.” Jerome shifts even closer. Bruce finds himself wondering whether he was always this clingy. “I want you to tell me how you would hurt me, Bruce.”

The breath is punched out of Bruce’s lungs.

Dreams weren’t real. He didn’t really want to hurt Jerome. He didn’t want Jerome to know the way his sleeping mind distorted the actual events that had taken place in the maze of mirrors. What had happened there had been bad enough as it was.

“And if I don’t?” His voice is strong, now. He’s glad that he’s regaining some of his fighting spirit. He can’t tell. He won’t tell.

Jerome sighs, his breath stirring Bruce’s curls.

“My lackies following behind us would love to watch me rip you to bloody pieces as a climax to this fun, profitable night,” he begins, and Bruce knows the Maniax well enough to know that that’s the absolute, undeniable truth. A chill begins to spread through him. “How do you think they’d feel about watching me strip you out of your little suit and touch you in all those bad, naughty places? I could—”

“Stop.”

Bruce’s stomach roils. He feels anxious, upset, disgusted. Any remaining arousal in his body is abruptly washed away in a tide of misery. He’s not entirely sure if Jerome is just saying it or if he would actually put on a show for his followers, but he can’t take the risk. He’d dealt with and survived an attempted public execution at Jerome’s hands, but public sex would doubtlessly leave him shattered. He’d rather tell Jerome whatever he wanted to hear than be seen so intimately by so many people who’d love for him to die. Even if they weren’t eager to spill his blood he wouldn’t want to be seen. Not when he was so vulnerable. So needy. So embarrassed of his own wants even without having to worry about anyone other than Jerome knowing the particulars. Not like that. Not ever. Having Jerome know was terrible and humiliating enough. Having the dreams and the feelings that he did was terrible and humiliating enough.

“I’ll tell you, just don’t let anyone see,” he asks lowly. He sees distant lights in the rear-view mirrors and he sinks further down into the seat, as if to hide. “Please don’t let them watch us.” His breath hitches. Jerome is observing him closely, no doubt enjoying Bruce’s obvious discomfort. No doubt planning to make him even more uncomfortable by exploiting every weakness he could find. Maybe he was planning to be _awful_ even if Bruce told him what he wanted to know, refusing Bruce any semblance of privacy just because he could. Dread overwhelms his anger. Tears he’d promised wouldn’t fall are filling up his eyes. “I won’t—”

“Shhh.” Jerome pets his hair. The action is a parody of a soothing touch made even worse by the fact that Jerome is the one who’s at fault for Bruce’s sudden, devastating mortification. “It can be our little secret, but you have to tell me what I want to know. If you don’t.” His fingers curl into the strands and tug, once, before he resumes his previous steady action. “I’ll give you an audience.” He chuckles roughly, and it fades into a wistful sigh.

“I can’t—” Bruce's voice cracks. “Jerome, I can’t be seen like—" His eyes sting. He can feel the first tear roll down his face and he feels even _worse_ for being so weak when he’s previously managed to stand up to death threats without crying. 

Jerome makes a soft, startled noise, as if he hadn’t actually expected Bruce would be so upset by the other side of Jerome’s awful ‘choice’. As if he’d thought the entire thing was a game with no repercussions. Bruce wishes he could be happy that Jerome was the one left scrambling. His hand, still petting Bruce’s hair, starts to shake almost imperceptibly. 

“They’d all be jealous of you, you know,” his voice is gentle like he’s trying, though failing, to alleviate Bruce’s obvious distress. Like he doesn’t know what to say to actually provide comfort. Like he himself has never been comforted in his entire life. Bruce’s chest suddenly aches. “They might jeer and scoff, but they’d all be wishing it were them being the sole focus of my attention. I know they would,” he continues quickly, as if that made the threat of turning Bruce’s violation into a public display any better. Bruce doesn’t care what the Maniax want. Bruce doesn’t care if they’d be jealous. Jerome flicks his knife shut and puts it in the inner pocket of his jacket. Both of his hands cup Bruce’s face. “They’d see the way that we _look at each other,_ they’d see the understanding, there.” His eyes rove over Bruce, his expression is pinched and forlorn, as if he can’t understand why Bruce hasn’t stopped crying when he’s trying so hard to reassure him. He uses his thumbs to ineffectually wipe away tears. “And the ones in the world who hate you the most would want to be you.” Jerome sounds affectionate, but his words continue to send chills down Bruce’s spine and tears down his cheeks.

“You’re not—” He breathes deeply, trying to gain control of his emotions, trying not to unravel any further than he already has. “Jerome, you’re not making me feel any better.”

Jerome’s hands go still.

“I’m not sure how to,” he says lowly, gritting his teeth as if admitting it pains him. “My followers would beg me to do to them the things that I want to do to you, and they’d thank me for it afterwards.”

“Then why don’t you pay attention to them, instead of me?” Bruce asks, voice rough. “I’m just—” Bruce isn’t _just_ anything, and therein lies the problem. “I’m just someone you’ve tried and failed to murder. Go have fun with the people who would kill themselves if you asked, if you’re so preoccupied with what they want from you.” 

It would be better for Bruce if Jerome forgot all about this and focused on someone else.

“No. They’re not…”

“Not what?”

“Not you,” Jerome breathes. “They’re not you, Bruce. The boy who got away,” Jerome murmurs tenderly. “The boy who almost killed me.” The car makes another turn, and they drift closer together. “The boy who could _ruin me, ruin everything_ ,” he says, and it sounds like praise, “if only you would give in to the darkness that you try so hard to hide. I’ve caught a glimpse of it, Bruce. I know that it’s there below the placid, boring surface that you’re so fond of projecting.”

‘Let it out. That’s it.’

“You’re not like them, Bruce. You are something so much more precious, and so much more dangerous. They could never deserve my attention the way that you do.”

Bruce shivers. He leans his forehead against Jerome’s chest. Jerome jerks as if, despite how much he spoke about Bruce giving in to him and subsequently offering him a shoulder to cry on if the need arose, he hadn’t prepared himself for Bruce to lean into his space without it being meant as an attack or being forced into it.

Jerome wasn’t as put together as he’d like Bruce to believe. 

Bruce thinks of the shaking hand petting his hair, of the thumbs wiping away his tears, of the frantic undertone of Jerome’s voice as he tried and failed to comfort him. Bruce is captured, hands literally tied, and the possibility of being found before anything happens is frightfully low. Bruce has very little power in this situation. The only power that he does have stems from the fact that Jerome, astoundingly, seems to want him to _like_ what’s going to happen to him. 

It kind of makes sense, he supposes. What was better than knowing Bruce wanted him? Knowing Bruce had enjoyed his attentions. Knowing Bruce wouldn’t be able to put it all behind him. Knowing Bruce had turned into a gorgeous mess all because of him. 

“Don’t let anyone see us, Jerome,” he asks, voice purposefully soft. He clenches his eyes shut and hopes that he’s right, hopes that Jerome would prefer that he experience shameful pleasure during their time together rather than drown in the humiliation of being watched and unable to do anything about it. 

“I won’t,” he says. Bruce allows himself to relax slightly, allows Jerome to feel him relaxing. Normally he wouldn’t let his reactions be so clearly displayed, but at this point he believes holding it back would hinder him more than help him. “I promise. Cross my heart, hope to die a second time.”

Jerome leans even harder against him for the rest of the ride, as if he’s sure that if he’s not touching Bruce as much as he can Bruce is just going to disappear like a wisp of smoke. Eventually the car makes one last turn, and then it comes to a slow stop.

Jerome’s arm drops from his shoulder to open the door, and Bruce—pressed up against it as he has been for the past half hour—almost falls to the ground as it swings open. Jerome’s hand steadies him and Bruce’s heart flutters in both gratitude and loathing—for being caught, for needing to be caught, for Jerome’s constant intrusion into his space being the reason he needed catching in the first place.

They step out. 

“Keep quiet about the hostage,” Jerome orders the driver. “I’ve got questions that need answering. I don’t need anyone busting in and ruining my interrogation.”

A chest at his back, a chin hooked over his shoulder.

No knife against his throat. 

“Home away from home,” Jerome says. At the edge of the city an old Gotham manor in flagrant disrepair is before them. It looks as though no one has lived here in years, and the tall trees surrounding the property probably acted as a convenient shield from prying eyes. “For now, at least. Tomorrow I’ll have my Maniax raze this place to the ground, so don’t get too excited about learning where I’ve been spending my free time.”

They go up the steps, they enter the house. Before the door shuts behind them Bruce can hear multiple cars screeching to a stop out front and the driver yell out excited greetings. Glass cracks underneath their shoes as they step further inside. Bruce can hear a distant thrum of music from the basement.

“Come on,” Jerome urges. “If they see that I have you, who knows what they’ll do.”

“Jerome,” Bruce sighs wearily as they make their way up creaking stairs. “They would literally do whatever you told them to do. Whether it was to kill me or to ignore me.” It’s an undeniable truth, one that makes his muscles tense uneasily. 

Jerome lets out a single sharp cackle. “Fair point.” He’s quiet for a few moments, like he’s trying to weigh the pros and cons of whatever comment is building up in his throat. Bruce is surprised that he’s showing any level of consideration. Maybe he was worried that Bruce would burst into tears again. They reach the landing for the second floor, but they continue upwards to the third. “Still, do you want them to know that you’re _all alone with me?_ ”

Bruce’s shuffling footsteps quicken. He feels the rumble of Jerome’s ensuing, soft laugher, and he feels—

He’s not sure what he feels anymore, because he’s almost sure that if he tried to get away from Jerome right now he’d be able to do it. Jerome’s grip on him is slacker than it could be, and he doesn’t even have the knife or the gun out. Bruce could slip out of his hold and push him down the stairs, even with his hands tied, and he’s certain that Jerome would survive the fall to the second-floor landing. He’d need to find something to cut the ties, after, but he’s fast, he’s quiet, he’s clever. He might be able to do it without getting caught, and even if he didn’t succeed at least he would have made an attempt.

He doesn’t. 

They walk past doors that have been pulled off of hinges and graffiti tagged onto walls, they walk into a storage room with a thin staircase leading up to an attic, the kind that can be pulled back up into the ceiling and shut; sealed from the inside. Bruce starts shaking as they ascend, and it’s not because he’s afraid.

The attic is all strange angles and mismatched furniture, and the highest point of the slanted roof just barely reaches a few inches taller than the top of Jerome’s head. The windows are covered with sheets to keep the light out, or maybe to keep the light in. The only source of illumination is a dingy lamp with an exposed blub, though there are a few unlit candles in glass containers that Bruce privately thinks are far too precarious to be set alight. It’s dusty and untidy, and frankly nothing about this location should make Bruce’s heart race.

But he’s alone with Jerome, and that—

—that’s enough. 

Jerome lets him go, and Bruce stays still as Jerome’s knife cuts through the zip ties. Bruce’s hands are free. Bruce knows how to fight. Bruce could knock him out and tie him up and wait until all the Maniax downstairs are asleep to slip away and call the police. 

He turns around, thoughts of escape filtering wildly though his mind, but they stutter and warp when Jerome’s fingers gently rub against the red encircling his wrists. 

“She tied you up too tight,” he says harshly.

Honestly, the nerve. As if Jerome didn’t fantasize about hurting Bruce _just right_ , whatever that meant. Probably, infuriatingly, the exact way that Bruce wanted it to be meant. Maybe it was driven by some possessive, selfish desire to be the only one to hurt Bruce. Bruce allows himself to take a moment to contemplate whether the reverse was true, and he was the only person allowed to hurt Jerome. 

Not that he wanted to. It was just… Fair, that way.

“She’s probably never zip tied someone’s wrists before.” A city councilor that actually wanted to do good for Gotham. Bruce hadn’t even spoken one word directly to her and he’s going to miss her. “I would have said something if I was losing circulation.” 

Jerome frowns before turning his back on Bruce to pull up the stairs.

Bruce doesn’t push him. Bruce doesn’t strangle him. Bruce doesn’t kick him. Bruce ducks his head and moves to perch on rumpled sheets, hands twisting together in his lap as he wonders whether Jerome had slept here the previous night.

Jerome turns, fingers twitching when he sees where Bruce has settled. The floorboards creak under his weight as he leans down, coming closer, sitting beside him. Jerome hooks his fingers against Bruce’s and lifts one hand up to his rough mouth to press a kiss to his knuckles.

Bruce tries not to look startled at the undeniably amorous gesture, but he's already so on edge that he's not sure he succeeds

“Tell me, Bruce.” Jerome’s hands grip his own tightly. He doesn’t sound demanding. Maybe, if Bruce refused, he’d let Bruce get away with not telling him anything and get on with the _other_ reason why he’d seen fit to drag Bruce up here to be alone with him. “Tell me how you would hurt me.”

He doesn’t say please.

Bruce feels like he can hear it all the same, though.

Why did he want to know, why did he want Bruce to tell him, why, why, why? Was it just meant to act as a reminder that Bruce—who tried so hard to be good—was just as full as dark impulses and violent thoughts as the people who viewed Jerome as a leader?

There was a marked difference there, though. Because Bruce might occasionally think things that made his skin crawl, but he didn’t act on them. Bruce sometimes has dreams that he has no control over which showcase terrible, bloody affairs, but the one time in his waking life that he’d ever wanted to put an unmistakable, permanent end to Jerome’s tyranny he’d been able to stop himself before crossing a line. And he’d promised himself, after, that he would never cross it. 

Bruce, just like Jerome had said before, isn’t like the Maniax.

There’s a difference. 

“I’ve had dreams,” Bruce begins unsteadily, voice barely above a whisper. There’s a difference between dreaming about hurting someone, and consciously thinking about hurting someone, and hurting someone on purpose. “About the times we’ve spent together.”

Jerome’s eyes flash. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles.

“I do, too.”

Bruce’s heart tugs fitfully. 

“And I’ve dreamt about the night that the lights went out.” He clears his throat, fighting to get the words out. “When I dream of hurting you, we’re in the maze. Always the maze.” He’d never dreamed of violently gaining the upper hand anywhere else. “Everything warps in the dream. It all goes wrong.” His tongue darts out to wet his lips. Jerome’s eyes dive down to follow the brief movement.

“How so?”

“Before I can throw aside the mirror shard your hands cover mine, and I can’t let it go. I try to move away at first, but you hold me so tight that my palms split open on the glass.” The words are starting to flow easier. Bruce grips back at Jerome’s hands. No one else knows about his dreams, and this is the one he would guard most of all. He’d never tell anyone else about it. “Blood starts streaming down the mirror, it stains your shirt. It doesn’t hurt, but I hate it. I start shaking, but I stop trying to pull away.”

In all of his dreams he stops trying to pull away eventually.

In real life he’s already stopped trying to pull away. 

He would have put up a fight if Jerome started going through with the other ‘choice’. He would have kicked and yelled and fought dirty to gain the upper hand in order to get away. But Jerome would rather him take pleasure in this than be so distressed by it that he would try to repress the memories. Jerome would rather him guiltily want more than wish it had never happened. 

Bruce can work with that.

“Do you remember the things you kept telling me back then, when I had you pinned beneath me? You say those things to me again. Over and over. ‘Let it out’, ‘that’s it’; you sound so proud of me. You sound—” Bruce’s breath catches. His heart races. His cheeks are burning. “Like you adore me for what I’ve done to you. Like being killed by me is all you’ve ever wanted. The shard slides into you, deeper and deeper, and I feel pulled towards you. I am pulled towards you. Drawn in until all that I can see is your face.”

His blood is rushing. He’s so ashamed of himself that it’s almost enough to physically hurt. 

But Jerome is looking at him, captivated. His eyes haven’t left Bruce’s face. He looks smitten.

He looks similar to how he does in the maze, flat on his back and at Bruce’s mercy. 

Jerome’s followers would never deserve his attention the way that Bruce would, because none of Jerome’s followers could destroy him the way that Bruce could. Completely. Utterly. Beautifully.

Bruce should feel sick, just like he does whenever he wakes up after this particular dream, but instead he feels his shame begin to drain away, siphoned off by the heat in Jerome’s gaze. Jerome is looking at him with an intent that Bruce usually associates with Jerome planning to murder him, but that isn’t the case anymore.

Bruce wonders what it will be like to be ruined.

“Sometimes, before I wake up, our lips brush,” Bruce whispers. “And it makes my heart pound.”

Jerome lets go of his hands, threads his fingers through Bruce’s hair, and roughly reels him in. 

“Is that how you would hurt me?” Jerome’s breath puffs against Bruce’s mouth. Bruce’s eyelashes flutter at the nearness.

“Is that how you want to be hurt by me?” He asks instead. He hopes not. He’d never be able to even come close to it. 

“Yes and no,” Jerome answers. “Being killed by you back then would have been a victory. I would have watched you be my end and I would have died with a smile on my face, because you would have proven that I was right about everything. Everyone is just looking for an excuse, even you. It would have changed you forever. _I_ would have changed you forever,” he adds, sounding infatuated with the very idea of it. 

“And what about now?”

“I haven’t really thought about it, outside thinking about what it would be like to fight you again,” Jerome admits. “That’s always enough to make my blood rush; nothing like a brawl to make the heart race. We’ll have to figure the rest out together.”

“Then why did you want to know?”

“I like that you’ve been thinking about me against your better judgement and morals,” Jerome tells him with undisguised satisfaction. “I got into your head that night and this proves that you weren’t able to forget about it, about me, about what happened between us. What more could a madman like myself ask for? You were going to kill me, Bruce, and no one would have blamed you for it. You almost killed me, but you stopped,” Jerome’s voice goes soft, full of a peculiar wonder. “No one ever… No one ever _stopped_ before, when they knew they could get away with it.”

Bruce's chest aches all over again.

“There’s a difference between being hurt by someone who wants to cause harm, and being hurt by someone who’d be so careful about it. Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees lowly, thoughts awash with shallow cuts, soft stinging, and bloody kisses. “When you dream of me, what do you feel?”

“Oh, Bruce,” Jerome whispers. “I feel everything, all at once.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm over on tumblr as rachie-neyiea, if anyone out there wants me to keysmash about Valeyne at them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand the chapter count has gone up. Somehow I am not surprised.

Bruce is the one who bridges the gap between them in the end. What starts as a soft, curious brush of lips—he’d wondered if it would feel like the kisses in his dreams. He’d worried that it wouldn’t. Somehow it had been better—slowly turns to something more heated as Jerome begins to take the reins. His fingers dig into Bruce’s hair, he tilts his head to move closer, he sighs, sounding nearly lovesick, as one of Bruce’s hands comes up to rest on the back of his neck.

Jerome’s mouth drifts open, their lips glide together slickly, his teeth graze against Bruce in a way that makes his breath catch. Bruce leans into him, the space between them vanishing inch by inch, and his eyes flutter shut.

It’s not very often that he dreams of kissing Jerome, or at least, that he remembers kissing Jerome when he wakes up. When it does happen it is mostly in the maze; Bruce braced overtop of Jerome and already left breathless by the way Jerome is looking at him, so even the barest touch of lips is enough to shock him. Occasionally it has happened in front of the face-painter’s mirror; Jerome’s lips becoming slick with blood and smudging colour all over Bruce’s stinging mouth. Once or twice it has happened without any real memory linked to it.

Bruce feels oddly fluttery, almost as if he hasn’t continually felt flooded with shame every time he awakens from a dream knowing that Jerome had starred in it, almost as if he actually _likes_ Jerome, even though that would be as ridiculous as it would be a very, very bad idea. He cannot afford that sort of connection with someone so intent on turning Gotham inside out. He cannot even really afford this, but… He wasn’t the reason why this was happening. Jerome was the one who took him, Jerome was the one who spoke about how much he’d love to turn Bruce into a mess, Jerome was the one who brought him here.

Bruce very carefully doesn’t think about how he was the one who initiated their first kiss. 

Jerome breaks away, breathing heavily through his mouth in a way that makes his exhalations puff across Bruce’s wet lips as he reaches into his pocket once again to pull out the switchblade. Seeing it in his hand, knowing that Jerome _knows_ , is enough to make him feel the twisted yearning that he’s become so familiar with. Jerome watches him intently as he brings the knife up to his throat, his other hand resting against the back of Bruce’s neck and keeping him in place. It’s so similar to what had happened in the firelight of his father’s office, except Bruce isn’t scrambling to stay alive, now.

Jerome leans in to kiss him again, his knife digs a little deeper without breaking skin, and Bruce makes that same reedy sound as when Jerome had held a knife to his neck when he’d been holding him in the bank. Jerome groans and presses closer, the kiss quickly deepening. It’s hurried and somewhat sloppy as if Jerome, despite the aura he seemed to project, wasn’t quite as experienced as he might want people to believe; not that Bruce has enough processing power left to mull that over fully. He’s much more focused with digging his hands into Jerome’s coat, leaning into him as much as the knife will allow, and letting his mouth fall open. The hand on the back of his neck begins to drift, nails scratching over the stark white of his dress shirt, until it settles against him once again.

This time shameful tears don’t flood Bruce’s eyes as he rocks up against Jerome’s palm, once, twice, before Jerome’s fingers grip around him in a way that makes him choke on yet another embarrassing sound. Jerome murmurs something against his mouth before both of his hands pull back. Bruce would protest, but when his eyes snap open he sees that Jerome is taking off his coat, and he quickly does the same with his suit jacket. He even manages to undo a few buttons of his dress shirt before Jerome leans in again, his thumb tracing the small nick that he’d left behind in the car. The blood has long since dried, but the action is enough to make Bruce’s breath catch anyways.

“Do you touch yourself when you think about the other times I’ve held a knife to your throat?” His thumb continues to press against the cut, but his eyes don’t look away from Bruce’s.

“No,” Bruce answers honestly, cheeks burning. Jerome hums under his breath, sounding as though he isn’t surprised. Bruce wonders if _Jerome_ has touched himself to thoughts of holding a knife to his throat. Given the current situation he doesn’t think it unlikely. The idea shouldn’t make him want to kiss Jerome even more than he already does. The idea should make him want to leave Jerome behind, just like he had in the bank.

“When you think of me, _when you dream of me_ , is it only your throat that I hold my knife against?” The sound of his voice is just as fervent as it is demanding. 

“No,” Bruce says, voice even softer.

Jerome smiles and leans in to kiss him again, lingering in a way that almost reads as being romantic.

As if anything about this situation could be romantic. They’re not a pair of young lovers. They’re not even friends. Jerome as an abductor and Bruce is an abductee. Even if he didn’t push Jerome down the stairs or hit him hard enough to knock him out, that didn’t change the events that lead them into this situation. 

If Bruce starts blaming himself for being here now he’s not sure he’ll be able to forgive himself for any of this later. 

“Tell me, Bruce.” The flat of the blade rests against Bruce’s hot cheek. Jerome’s eyes are wild and unwavering, full of an uncanny light. He’s looked at Bruce like this before—in real life and in his dreams—when he was flat on his back in the maze with Bruce braced over top of him, ready to be his end. “What have you dreamt of which left you feeling the most out of control? What has your brain cooked up about us which has made your composure almost snap?” His tone is low and rasping, just like every time Bruce hears him say ‘that’s it’ and ‘let it out’. “What’s it going to take to leave you with memories that will drive you crazy with how much you _want me?_ ”

Bruce wavers at the idea of being so open, even if he’s already come so far and Jerome is already aware of so much. Not telling would be the best idea, because if his and Jerome’s previous confrontations were enough to warp his sleeping—and now even his waking—mind then what would happen if he actually got the things that left him aching whenever he woke up? But this might be his only chance to ever _get_ those wonderful, shameful things that left him aching when he woke up. He wants, despite his better judgment and morals. He wants, even though he shouldn’t. He wants, and Jerome wants, too. 

It’s comforting knowing that he’s not the only one. It makes it seem less unnatural. 

“After you cut me,” he whispers, “will you kiss me, there?” In the dreams he’d thought it was something horridly amorous. Maybe if it actually happens it will be even better; like the kisses. “And—and will you—” His heart lurches, he feels feverish, he is glaringly aware of a fresh blooming of shame even if Jerome is looking at him as if he’d do absolutely anything that Bruce asked. “Will you put your knife in my mouth?” He cannot find it in himself to elaborate on the scene that so often plays out in front of the face-painter’s mirror, but he doesn’t seem to have to.

“I will,” Jerome promises, indulgent and breathless, as if Bruce’s requests are not something to be shameful about. As if Bruce’s requests are something that he would love to carry out. It helps to ease his racing thoughts and his twisting guilt. The knife in his hand slowly slides lower on Bruce’s cheek. “I told you, didn’t I? That we’re both going to get what we want tonight.”

But what was it that Jerome wanted? Surely there was more to his desires than to just go along with whatever Bruce asked for? Bruce swallows dryly and tilts his head, leaning lightly onto the flat of the blade. “You did,” he says, watching as Jerome watches him. “Kiss me again?”

Jerome makes a low sound in his throat—incredulous, like he can’t believe Bruce feels the need to ask—before eagerly complying. 

Bruce kisses back, hyperaware of the blade on his cheek, hyperaware of the slick feeling of Jerome’s tongue grazing past his lips to drag along his teeth. Bruce, hot and bothered and struggling to undo the rest of the buttons on his dress shirt, purses his lips around the tip of Jerome’s tongue and clumsily sucks. Jerome makes a curious sound that causes a new heat to spark to life inside of him, and Bruce sucks harder before grazing his teeth against him. Jerome jerks, the knife digs into Bruce’s cheek, and Bruce can’t hold back a whine as he feels the blessed sting of another shallow graze.

Jerome pulls away, takes one look at Bruce’s face, and ducks back in to press a soft kiss against the small gash. When he pulls back the second time the center of his upper lip is tinged red, similar enough to what Bruce has sometimes dreamed about that Bruce can’t resist darting forward to kiss Jerome again, gracelessly lapping at his mouth. The faint taste of his own blood on his tongue is dizzying. He finally frees himself of his dress shirt before his hands slip in underneath Jerome’s sweater to force it up, up, over his head. Jerome’s strong arms clamp around him, pull him, twist him—the feel of so much skin against his own is almost enough to make him feel faint. The most unclothed either of them had ever been in his dreams was when Jerome had cut a third of the way down his turtleneck in order to bare Bruce’s neck—and Bruce finds himself flat on his back, Jerome hovering over top of him, knife in hand.

He wonders if what he feels now is anything close to what Jerome felt back when their positions had been reversed a year ago.

The knife rests against the hollow of his throat. Bruce’s shallow inhalations become even more rapid.

“Probably shouldn’t slash your pretty face too much,” Jerome says under his breath. The knife taps a restless rhythm against Bruce’s throat, just like Jerome’s leg had restlessly swung to tap against the insides of his ankles in the car. “Especially if you want my knife in your mouth. You’ll most likely get cut, then.” His free hand presses down on Bruce’s sternum, pinning him in place and making it impossible for Bruce to catch his breath. Bruce stares up at him—his flushing cheeks, his kiss-bruised mouth, his blown pupils—and licks his lips as he imagines—

The blade cutting into the corner of his mouth in front of the face-painter’s mirror. Bruce left speechless and trembling as his and Jerome’s eyes locked by virtue of the reflective surface of the glass. Jerome crooning terrible things directly in his ear which often left Bruce feeling panicked and unnerved and disgustingly _hot_ as blood began to drip into his mouth and down his chin. Jerome forcing him around and kissing him, tongue ruthlessly pressing against broken skin in a way that had made Bruce squirm and squeeze his legs together.

—what it will be like for it to happen. There was a difference between dreaming about being hurt, and consciously thinking about being hurt, and being hurt in real life. Bruce thinks of all the little nicks that he’s taken so far, thinks of how hungry Jerome seems poised above him, and he finds himself pining even more fervently for things that he would never have the nerve to tell anyone else about.

“Little gashes on your lips, maybe a scratch or two against your tongue, I’ll smear the blood on your mouth with kisses,” he promises while Bruce’s hips roll underneath him, searching desperately for friction. “Is that what you want from me, Bruce?” He sounds like he already knows the answer. He sounds adoring.

He sounds like he does when he praises Bruce for piercing him with the shard of mirror.

“Yes,” he answers, hands digging into the waistband of Jerome's pants. “I want that.” And he wants more, too. If he only has this one chance, then he needs to take everything that he can get. The things he’s hated longing for, and things he’d been too caught up in the disgusting intimacy of bloody kisses to even start thinking about. “What do you want from me?”

Because there must be something. Something that Bruce was missing. Jerome might have wanted him to _like_ this, but he wasn’t a selfless, kindly person. There must be more that he wanted, too. It was obvious in the way that he crowded Bruce’s space, in the way he’d spoken to him in the car, in the way he’d touched Bruce without caring about whether or not Bruce wanted to be touched.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jerome leans down, lips barely grazing against Bruce’s ear. “I want to get in your head again, just like I did on my special night. I want you to carry these memories with you. I want you to continue to think of me against your better judgement and morals. I want you to _want me_ just as much as I want you.”

“You tried to kill me,” Bruce murmurs, feeling strangely weak at being told that he’s wanted. He feels foolish for it, but he can’t seem to help it. “How much can you really want me if you’ve also wanted me to die?”

“How much can you really want this when you know I wanted you to die?”

Fair enough, Bruce supposes, too turned on to bother starting any lengthy arguments or conversations. They were both twisted in one way or another—in ways that mirrored each other, even—a bizarre pair who had come so close to killing each other last year, and who obviously were never able to put that time behind them.

Again, he wonders what it will be like to be ruined.

He wonders what exactly Jerome _means_ by it.

His thoughts twist again, their falsified moment in front of the face-painter’s mirror springing up without him meaning for it to. The blade at the corner of his mouth. Their eyes locking in the mirror. Jerome making wicked promises as everyone else seemed to fade away. Jerome kissing him, forcing his way into Bruce’s mouth, Bruce revolted and struck by the taste of his own blood. For a fraction of a second his mind shows him more, a terrible what could have been; Bruce bent over the vanity with Jerome at his back, Jerome holding the knife to his throat, Jerome forcing Bruce to stare at his own reflection as shameful, mortified tears slid down his cheeks and smudged his face-paint. 

Utterly ruined. Disgraced. Shattered into pieces too small to be put back together as they once were. Filled up with hate and desire and humiliation and cock. 

The brief, intrusive flash makes him feel faulty, as if something inside of him has been wired wrong. Maybe it is, but Bruce doesn’t think there’s anything he can do about it other than attempt to accept the glaring flaw or hate himself for it for the rest of his life.

He digs a hand into Jerome’s hair and drags him into a kiss, mind buzzing with awareness about the knife still at his throat. He moves underneath Jerome, jittery and stifling hot, and eventually Jerome pulls back, the flat of the blade gliding partway down Bruce’s sternum before it twists, the sharp edge finally coming into direct contact with Bruce’s skin and leaving a shallow gash a few inches long. Jerome ducks down to press his lips against it softly before he draws his tongue along the entirely of the cut.

It hurts. It’s good. Bruce allows himself to love it more than he fixates on how he should hate it. Bruce can feel the front of his underwear become damp. Bruce wants to feel Jerome’s hand on him again. Bruce wants to reach into Jerome’s pants and see if he could make Jerome’s breath catch. Bruce wants to kiss him. Bruce wants to kiss Jerome and taste his own blood in his mouth again. Bruce wants the taste of his own blood in his mouth even when they’re not kissing. 

“Kiss me,” he implores, tugging on coppery strands of hair. “I want you to kiss me.”

Jerome laughs against him, soft and surprisingly not malicious, and he allows himself to be guided back up.

“So demanding,” he says, hushed, lips barely grazing against Bruce’s mouth. The knife is at his neck. Bruce cannot lean up towards him without hurting himself, and that just winds him up even more. “You really like being kissed by me, huh?” Soft, tender, mystified. Bruce wants to kiss him even more if it will make him keep talking like that. “Not just being kissed by the knife?” His voice takes on that delighted edge again. “If I’d known you’d be like this I would have kidnapped you from the bank and _kept you._ ”

Bruce’s breath catches in his throat.

Kept me, he thinks wildly, mind spinning.

He could not be kept. He would not allow himself to be kept. This was a one-time-only opportunity for them both—

Jerome kisses him again and Bruce’s thoughts become static when his tongue pointedly slips into Bruce’s mouth, curling teasingly against his hard palate. Bruce sucks him in deeper, as deep as he can, even though the mere thought of doing such a thing would have left him disgusted with himself an hour ago. It’s slick and wet and hot, and if Bruce were standing his knees would be going weak. His mind flashes to the thought of sucking Jerome’s blade into his mouth like this and he twitches; wanting, wanting, wanting.

Jerome eventually takes control again, and he bites down on Bruce’s bottom lip before he pulls away, sliding himself down Bruce’s body to sit astride Bruce’s thighs. One hand lays firmly on Bruce’s stomach, the hand with the knife starts to undo the button and zipper of Bruce’s trousers. Bruce watches, strung out, as he pulls the waistband down a few inches before slipping the handle of his knife underneath Bruce’s underwear to pull those down, too. Bruce’s cock—unbelievably flushed and hard—springs free, curving upwards.

Jerome pauses for a moment, like he’s taking the time to savour the fact that Bruce really was lapping his attention up, before the point of his knife digs into Bruce’s hip.

It twirls in his graceful, deadly fingers. It drills into skin. Blood begins to slowly well up. Bruce’s mind skips repetitively on the memory of a dream, the muscles of his abdomen clench, his legs spread as wide as they can with Jerome’s knees bracketing him, his hands dig into the bedsheets.

Jerome’s other hand moves down from his stomach to grip him—his palm is soft but his fingertips are rough and the knife is dragging down Bruce’s hip and—

Bruce comes with a weak sound, desperately trying to push himself deeper in Jerome’s hand and pressing more firmly against the knife as a result. Every uncontrolled thrust causes the blade to dig deeper, to pierce more skin besides the original laceration. It hurts, but he can’t seem to stop until he’s completely unwound, breathless and limp, a feeling akin to affection unfurling in his chest despite himself as Jerome stares down at him, irises such a thin ring around his pupils that his eyes appear nearly black.

Bruce’s mind is too fuzzy to think of anything clever to say, but Jerome doesn’t seem to mind the silence because he rasps a curse under his breath before ducking down to press kisses against the blood streaming from Bruce’s hip. It’s the deepest wound yet and every press of lips against it causes it to throb in time with Bruce’s rapidly beating heart. When Jerome pulls back his mouth is so slick, so red, and Bruce can’t hold back the whimsical thought that he looks captivating. 

“You love being hurt just right, don’t you?” Jerome presses a kiss to his other hip. To his stomach, to his collarbones, to the crook of his neck; leaving wicked little kiss-marks with every brush of his lips. He leans back on his heels to look down at the somewhat gruesome picture that Bruce must make, and after only a moment he dives back down to Bruce’s hip to nip and suck at broken skin before laving his tongue against it just as he had to the much shallower cut along Bruce’s sternum. It’s painful, but Bruce can’t seem to help but push up against Jerome’s wide smile. “You love being hurt by _me_ ,” Jerome murmurs, equal parts enthralled and victorious, as he traces more bloody kisses up Bruce’s body, smacking a faded imprint against his cheek. “Fuck, I want to ruin you for anyone else. I want to drive you crazy. Would you like that, Bruce?”

“You’re already driving me crazy,” Bruce manages, mind spinning at the undoubtedly possessive nature of what Jerome is telling him, and Jerome rasps out a laugh. 

Kept, he finds himself echoing again.

Was Jerome going to try to keep him when Bruce eventually tried to leave?

The thought comes and goes like a wave upon the shore.

Bruce can feel Jerome’s hands working between them, can feel his knuckles brush across over-sensitive skin as Jerome undoes his own pants and pushes them partway down his thighs. He kisses Bruce, rushed and urgent, and Bruce finally feels the hard line of his cock press against him, sliding incessantly against the slickness of Bruce’s hip. 

The kiss becomes messier as his hips work, sawing against Bruce, occasionally skimming directly over the complete length of the cuts and making Bruce’s breath catch with a strange mixture of sharp pain and desire. Bruce’s mouth falls open inelegantly, Bruce’s nails dig into Jerome’s shoulders, Bruce rocks against him, feverishly engrossed by the idea of Jerome coming just from rutting against him.

He wonders, almost swooning from the image, what might have happened if Bruce had placed himself in Jerome’s lap before Jerome had the chance to fully pull him into the bed and pin him down. Facing him, just like Jerome had said he wanted. He wonders if Jerome would have come in his pants from the feeling of Bruce sitting astride him and grinding down against him as Bruce chased his own pleasure by bucking into Jerome’s hand, all while a knife rested against his throat and Jerome desperately licked into Bruce’s warm, pliant mouth.

“I want you to,” he can barely hear himself through the slick sounds produced by their lips and Jerome’s continuous rocking, and the excited buzzing in his head, and Jerome’s harsh, heavy panting. He wants Jerome to come on him? He wants Jerome to ruin him for anyone else? He wants Jerome to keep him? He’s not even entirely sure, his thoughts are in such disarray. “I want you to.” 

Jerome grinds against him. Bruce pulls him closer. Bruce’s teeth dig into Jerome’s bottom lip, too stirred up for gentleness, and Jerome makes a sound that his half-snarl and half-whine, wild and vicious. Bruce can feel a splatter of wet heat rush against his hip and Jerome’s grinding morphs into slow, firm thrusts as he rides out his own climax. His head drops against Bruce’s neck, mouthing at the skin just below his ear before he bites and then sucks hard enough to leave a bruise. His body eventually stills and Bruce is left panting below him, unable to get hard again so soon but feeling fresh lust burn inside of him at the filthy vulgarity of Jerome rubbing off against his broken skin. He’s not sure he’s capable of wanting anything quite as much as he wants more of this, more of Jerome’s attention.

Suddenly the idea of this being a one-time-only event seems dreadful. Bruce has finally gotten a real taste of the terrible things that he’s been dreaming of, but he’d be far too self-conscious to share his needs with anyone other than the person who already knew what he wanted and, damningly, wanted the exact same thing. 

Not to mention that he can’t help but think that Jerome is the only one who he wants this sort of attention from. A knife in the hand of any other just didn’t seem to strike him the same way. It didn’t make his breath hitch. It didn’t make his insides twist with sweet anxiety. 

No one else made him feel the way Jerome did, whether he had a knife in hand or not. 

Jerome seems to rouse from his brief daze, he pulls back to look down at him and his knife starts to tap, tap, tap its way up each of Bruce’s ribs. Bruce must be such a mess, ruffled and covered in red blotches, but Jerome’s eyes are still filled with heat when they look him over.

It makes Bruce feel wanted and warm. It makes him feel something akin to affection, even if he can’t afford that kind of tenderness, here.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Jerome asks, licking his lips as if he’s starving for more of whatever Bruce can give him. 

“What?”

“The carnival, when I smeared that face-painter’s blood all over your mouth.” He reaches down between them, slicking his fingers with the blood and come splotched along Bruce’s hip, and he carefully traces Bruce’s bottom lip with the crude blend of fluids. “You were so helpless back then, pushing your back against my chest to try and get away from my knife. Delicate, cute. And then you were pretty as a picture, all dolled up with such a horrendous final touch drawn by my own hand. What do you think you would have done if I had kissed you afterwards?”

Before the dreams? Before the idea of Jerome near him in any capacity left him feeling more than just anger or dread?

“I would have fought you off,” Bruce tells him truthfully. He presses his lips together, letting the smear transfer to his upper lip as well. “And if that didn’t work I would have bit you.”

Jerome chortles, and his fingers trace over Bruce’s mouth in a way that is almost beseeching.

“I wouldn’t have minded being bitten by you. If anything that would have made me kiss you harder. I’ve dreamt about it, sometimes,” he says lowly. Bruce’s heart twinges. His mind catches on his own visions about kissing in front of the face-painter’s mirror and that flash of a scene—bent over the vanity like a frail slip of a thing, crying, wanting, forced to watch himself through the mirror. “But I’ll tell you a secret, Bruce.” His voice turns into a whisper, his fingers push between Bruce’s lips to incessantly press against his closed teeth. “Mostly, when I dream of you, I dream of the maze.”

Do you dream of winning, or do you dream of losing, Bruce wonders as his teeth begin to part. Jerome impatiently drives his fingers inside to rest on Bruce’s tongue. 

“I’m so glad chance brought us together again so that we could understand each other a little better, aren’t you?”

Bruce manages a nod, mind beginning to buzz again at the way Jerome shallowly rocks his fingers into his mouth. 

“It feels kind of like destiny. You want to bleed because of me, I want to make you bleed, and we both feel good about it. It’s nice, isn’t it, to be hurt by someone who will be careful about it? I’ll always be careful about it,” he promises devotedly. “I’ll always hurt you just right. We’re like two gruesome halves of a whole, Bruce.” He smiles wickedly, pushing in further. Bruce sucks on his fingers just like he sucked on Jerome’s tongue. Just like he wants to suck on Jerome’s knife even if it ends up leaving his mouth a bloody mess that will be difficult to explain once he’s home again. “I should have realized we’d end up fastened together.” His fingers drag out of Bruce’s mouth and Bruce pants underneath him, waiting. “I never forgot about you, Bruce, and you never forgot about me.”

It’s hard to forget about someone who tried to murder you, Bruce thinks faintly.

It’s hard to forget about someone who wants to ruin you.

Who wants to keep you.

This, maybe, will not turn out to be a one-time-only occurrence, but even if Bruce would be willing to do this again—let Jerome hold a knife against him and let Jerome kiss him and let Jerome say darkly affectionate and adoringly possessive things to him—he would not allow himself to be kept.

And if it came down to a fight. Well.

Bruce is stronger than he was last year. Bruce could overpower him. Bruce could—

The scene from his dreams of the maze blinks into his mind, there and gone in a second but impossible to ignore.

Not that. He couldn’t do that.

He looks up at Jerome, trying to allow his focus to be pulled back to reality.

“Kiss me?” The sting of the knife leaves him feverish, yes, but Jerome’s kisses and less vicious touches were something he found himself craving, too, now that he knew what those were like. He wonders what his dreams are going to turn into after tonight. Better, or worse.

Jerome makes that incredulous noise again before he complies, and Bruce finds himself smiling contentedly against Jerome’s mouth.

Almost as if he actually _likes_ Jerome.

Even though that’s just as dangerous as it is ridiculous.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A _New Tag_ has been added, because it just had to happen guys c'mon let Jerome get what he wants, fffffff.
> 
> Had a lot of fun with this, hope you enjoy! :)

Kissing Jerome is addictive. Bruce feels like he’s drowning in a sea of compulsive fixation and Jerome is only too happy to pull him under the waves. Deeper, deeper, until Bruce will only ever want to kiss and be kissed by Jerome. Until Bruce will only ever want to touch and be touched by Jerome. Until Bruce wants Jerome just as much as Jerome wants him. 

The idea—obsession, devotion, infatuation—makes him shudder.

It’s not from fear.

He wonders if it should be.

“I’ve cut you,” Jerome murmurs between kisses, “and I’ve kissed you, there. Are you ready for what else you want from me, darlin’?”

“Yes,” he says in a rush, hands digging into Jerome’s hair. He kisses Jerome firmly, licking at his mouth again, curious little sparks igniting inside of him as he becomes used to the texture of Jerome’s rough, heavily scarred lips rasping and catching against his tongue. His licks his way up one half of the extension of Jerome’s smile. He presses a kiss to the corner of Jerome’s eye. “Yes, yes.”

“Tell me _why_ you want it, Bruce.” The knife settles just underneath his chin. “Tell me why the idea of my knife in your mouth was what came to mind when I asked what left you feeling the most out of control? What would drive you crazy with how much you want me?” The knife presses, Bruce’s chin tilts upwards, he meets Jerome’s burning eyes. “I might have cut you there, anyways, to go along with your first request,” he says in an almost doting manner. His free band brushes a few stray curls away from Bruce’s face. “You could have asked me for anything, Bruce, why that?”

“Because I dreamt of it,” Bruce responds softly, though surely Jerome was aware that everything that Bruce wanted from him was because he’d dreamt of it, first. “And it made me feel like I was out of my mind. It left me in anguish, but it also left me wanting.” He feels strangely intoxicated, speaking this out loud, but Jerome already knew about Bruce’s dreams of the maze and everything else paled in comparison to that horrible scene. “In front of the face-painter’s mirror you don’t smear his blood over my mouth. The feeling of your knife—” His breath catches in his throat briefly, and Jerome’s eyes become even more intense. “Sliding between my lips, it’s invasive and revolting, and you start cutting into the corner of my mouth as if—” He lifts a hand, lightly tracing a finger up a now-familiar curve of scar tissues. “As if you want me to match you.” Like they were some kind of gruesome set. “You speak to me, but I can never remember what you say.” Just a general idea; softly-spoken threats and promises and things that made Bruce flood with molten indecision. Fight to get away, or lean into the cut of the knife?

“Would you like,” Jerome rasps unsteadily, sounding as if he is the one who is being ruined, “to match?”

Yes, the thought springs up instinctively. Bruce immediately crushes it down. 

“Would you?” His asks instead, heart racing behind his ribs.

Jerome’s thumb grazes against the corner of his mouth, pressing up the skin in a mimic of a smile.

“You’re too pretty to mark you up as much as me,” he tells Bruce. “But you’d be charming with a constant, faint half-smile. And.” His thumbs presses harder. His eyes spark. “You’d look like you were mine, then.” He pulls back abruptly, dragging Bruce’s pants down his legs so forcefully that Bruce slides a few inches down the bed with the motion. Then he starts pushing the rest of his own clothing off and Bruce catches sight of his cock, already half-hard, with faint traces of red smeared along the underside. 

Bruce’s mouth floods, he needs something—tongue, fingers, blade, cock—nestled inside of him; needs something to receive, needs something to take.

“Tell me that you want me, Bruce,” Jerome demands. “I want to hear you say it.” The flat of the blade gazes against the crest of Bruce’s lips and he almost chokes with want. “I need to hear you say it.”

“I want you,” Bruce complies; quick, eager, _honest_. His lips brush against the blade with every word. “I want you, Jerome. I want you. Please,” his voice turns into a whine that he’s too far-gone to be embarrassed about. “Give it to me.” He opens his mouth, the tip of his tongue rests against his lower lip, and he tries not to squirm. His hands seek out Jerome, fingers digging into his thighs.

The flat of the blade presses against his tongue.

Bruce’s body jolts, as if shocked by a live-wire.

—it’s happening, it’s happening, it’s happening—

He closes his mouth and sucks, light and clumsy, trying to get used to the feeling of something so rigid and so dangerous inside of him. He could get hurt like this, he could bleed so much like this, his eyes fall shut and he presses his tongue against the flat of the blade as hard as he dares. 

“Look at you,” Jerome breathes. He shifts slightly, and the knife clacks against Bruce’s teeth. “So stunning. Wish you could see what you look like right now.”

—bent over the vanity, forced to watch himself take whatever Jerome saw fit to give him, his shameful crying eventually turning to kittenish whines and needy moans as Jerome overwhelmed him—

“Can you take it deeper for me?”

Bruce’s lips part slightly as he nods. The knife skims across his tongue, the point just barely scratching in a way that makes his heart skip. His lips purse back around the blade and he sucks harder, wondering if Jerome will twist the knife without warning, wondering if blood will flood his mouth, wondering if Jerome will find pleasure in kissing him afterwards. 

“So hot like this,” Jerome murmurs, fingers trailing through Bruce’s hair; petting him. “I’d rather you keep your eyes open, though.” The angle changes, the metal clicks against Bruce’s teeth, the tip scrapes the roof of his mouth and he gasps, eyes snapping back open along with his mouth. “There you are,” Jerome croons as he gently rocks the flat of the blade against Bruce’s tongue in a way that leaves him dizzy. “Don’t want you to forget who’s doing this to you.”

As if Bruce could possibly forget. 

Jerome shifts above him, the knife twists in his hand, the edge of the blade rests upon the center of Bruce’s lower lip. He could drag it down, he could saw it against flesh, he could push further into Bruce’s mouth to cut his tongue, he could do so many things that leave Bruce swooning, eyelashes fluttering in an attempt to stay open and keep watching. 

“You want me to cut you here, too?” Jerome asks. His voice is a mix of teasing amusement and heady desire. “Or do you only want me to cut the corner of your mouth, just like in your dreams?”

Bruce settles his teeth against the blade. Bruce feels the faint pressure of the edges pressing into his upper and lower lips. Bruce locks eyes with Jerome and attempts to suck in order to force his lips tighter around it, even though he can’t get a proper seal. It’s not enough to cut skin. He wishes it were. 

“This might even be better than watching you go down on me,” Jerome whispers before pressing more weight upon the handle, the blade finally digging into Bruce’s lower lip enough to prick uncomfortably. “Take a deep breath for me, darlin’.”

Bruce does.

“That’s it,” Jerome praises, the choice of words so obviously on purpose. It makes Bruce feel like he’s melting. “That’s it.”

He drags the knife down and Bruce’s bottom lip splits.

The sting is sharp enough to make his eyes prick with the beginnings of tears. Blood slowly seeps into his mouth, he can feel it begin to trickle down his chin. He must look half-wild and debauched. He wonders, if he looked at himself right now, if he’d like what he saw staring back at him. 

Jerome obviously does. 

Jerome leans in towards him and sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. Bruce cries out, and he becomes a shaking mess as Jerome continues to lavish attention upon him; sucking, biting, licking, kissing, kissing, kissing—

There are so many different kinds of kissing, Bruce is finding out first-hand. Soft, barely there brushes of lips. Firm, closed-mouthed; the pressure leaving him wanting more. Wet and open. Wet with teeth. Wet and possessive and hot. Bruce likes them all.

He hopes in his dreams they’ll kiss more, after this.

He hopes in real life they’ll kiss more, after this.

The thought makes his heart flutter sickly, and his first instinct is to deny that he’d thought it at all, but—

Jerome pulls back, his expression is almost enough to steal Bruce’s breath, and the knife finally, finally, slides between Bruce’s slick lips and rests against the corner of his mouth.

—he really does hope that they’ll kiss more after this. He hopes for more of everything after this. Bruce tries so hard to be good, to do good, but surely he could allow himself to be greedy for one specific thing? For one specific person? Everyone had flaws and shortcomings and—

“Don’t want to hurt you too much and scare you off for good,” Jerome murmurs, as if speaking out loud to himself. “Don’t think I should cut too deep the first time.”

The first time, Bruce echoes, fingers spasming with a sudden desire to reach out to him.

“I’ll get you used to it, to start. We can add more to it later. For now, though, just a little bit.”

Just right, Bruce thinks feverishly. “I trust you,” slips out of his mouth into the air between them, and he doesn’t even regret it immediately afterwards. Trusting Jerome not to cause chaos and destruction would be foolish, but trusting Jerome with himself somehow didn’t seem like an absolute death wish.

Jerome couldn’t ruin Bruce if Bruce was dead. Jerome couldn’t keep Bruce if Bruce was dead.

Jerome couldn’t be ruined by Bruce if Bruce was dead. 

Jerome exhales shakily, and even though he’s obviously trying to hide it Bruce can see something there, lingering in the depths of his eyes, brought about by Bruce’s soft confession. A kind of tentative hope; perhaps he wasn’t used to people trusting him for reasons outside of his proven expertise at being an agent of chaos. It humanizes him, in a way. It makes Bruce’s heart ache for reasons he doesn’t think he could explain. 

“I trust you,” he says again.

Jerome darts down to press a quick, light kiss to Bruce’s cheek. When he leans back his eyes are resolute.

The knife begins to cut.

It digs in slow, slower than Bruce had dreamed of, Jerome more careful in real life than he had been in dreams. It hurts and it makes his heart race; the most exquisite agony. Jerome is looking down at him as if he would do anything that Bruce asked; as if struck by him, as if weak for him, as if head over heels for him. Bruce is the one on his back with a knife in his mouth, but there is something welling up inside of him, an urgent whisper that says that there can be power in giving in.

‘Let it out. That’s it.’

He wants this. He’s allowing this. Jerome wants this, too. Bruce is not tame or frail for giving in. Bruce cannot, in this moment, feel shame for the things which leave him hot and wanting. There was no room for shame, here, underneath a man who was so fixated on Bruce that even lunatics and idiots would notice. No room for it when Jerome was murmuring sincere praise under his breath, eyes locked on Bruce and burning with an intensity that could reduce the entire city to nothing but a pile of ash.

No one has ever looked at Bruce like this before. No one has ever come close. 

Somehow he knows with certainty that no one ever would.

He leans into the cut of the knife.

Jerome’s reaction is not entirely surprising—a hushed, loving curse, as if Bruce has just pierced his chest with a shard of mirror—but it is gratifying. It makes Bruce’s heart tug fitfully. It makes something _more_ than affection well up inside of him. It makes him wonder if giving in would always feel like this. It makes his spiraling thoughts after that particular contemplation begin to whirr, incomprehensible. 

The knife slides out of the corner of his mouth, and when Jerome leans in to kiss him again it is the wildest yet. There is no restraint or grace or coyness, and Bruce digs his hands into Jerome’s hair and allows himself to be swept away by the painful fervency. Jerome pulls back briefly, but only so that he can suck two of his own fingers into his mouth, staring down at Bruce like he’s starved for something that only Bruce knows how to give him.

When his fingers slide out of his mouth they are coated thickly with saliva that has the faintest pink tinge, and Bruce feels somewhat struck by that even before Jerome leans in to kiss him again while his hand goes down, down, past Bruce’s aching cock to press the first fingertip inside of him. A whine builds up in Bruce’s throat. He shudders and twitches, unable to decide whether he wants to push onto the finger or pull away from it. Jerome withdraws and slides in again, further, while he presses a lingering kiss to the corner of Bruce’s sharply stinging mouth.

But the saliva isn’t enough to ease the way. It dries quickly and leaves Bruce feeling sore at every slight movement. Jerome pulls his hand away and hastily spits onto the digits that he’d sucked into his mouth, and both of his fingers circle around Bruce’s rim in a way that drives him crazy before the first one presses back inside.

“Wasn’t expecting such pleasant company,” he admits breathlessly. “Didn’t think I’d need any slick.” His finger works faster, goes deeper. It feels big inside of him, and Bruce’s breath catches in his throat at the sensation of it for the minute before the glide becomes rougher and Bruce starts to ache in a way that doesn’t make him want to ache more. Jerome leans down, breath rushing over Bruce’s softening cock, and he spits again right onto the spot where he and Bruce are connected. Bruce jerks, flushing, wondering if he should protest, but Jerome’s finger begins to slide easier again, and it feels good, and Bruce probably should be more repulsed by how much of his own blood that Jerome has in his mouth than by Jerome’s spit, anyway. 

The tip of the second finger starts pushing in. Bruce chokes on a whimper, caught between loving it and hating it. Jerome shoves them deeper and Bruce’s mind blanks, overwhelmed at the strain. His nails dig into the skin of Jerome’s shoulders and drag all the way down to his elbows, leaving welts and a few shallow cuts in their wake. Jerome reacts to the pain by forcing them even further inside, and Bruce’s entire body sparks as his nails dig red crescents into Jerome’s arms.

Then the knife finds its favourite resting place once more, settling against the delicate skin of his throat. Bruce’s ears ring, and he’s almost certain that he makes what Jerome had referred to as a ‘damsel in distress’ noise. Bruce feels as if the heat and crazed want flooding inside of him would be enough to reduce the entire city to nothing but a pile of ash. As if the capacity for calamity has been lurking silently inside of him, waiting to be unearthed. 

They’re well-matched, in that sense.

It makes him lightheaded.

“Don’t think this will be enough to get you nice and ready for me. Should have known someone as tightly wound as you would need way more attention. You feel like you’re trying to keep me locked inside of you,” Jerome tells him, sounding drunk on the idea. “Bet you’d fit around me like a vice even if I had enough slick to open you up properly.” Jerome withdraws, the slow drag of his fingers leaving Bruce sore in a strange new way. Bruce’s hands fall away from his elbows, but only so that they can gently wrap around the wrist of the hand holding a knife to his throat as if he means to keep it there. Jerome’s hand is steady, but his inhalation trembles. “Next time,” he whispers. 

“Next time,” Bruce promises breathlessly. “But how would you want me, this time?”

Jerome groans, shuddering.

“You overtop of me, like in the maze,” he rasps, and Bruce feels electric. The maze, the maze, the maze. Did Jerome dream of winning or did Jerome dream of losing? “You in my lap, you leaning towards me until all you can see is my face, like in your dreams. You unable to look away from me, unable to walk away from me after. Unable to leave me behind,” he admits, eyes flashing, and Bruce hazily remembers Jerome’s thoughts about keeping him. “Your delicate fingers around my throat, like you’re holding my life in your hands. I’d trust you not to take it, but I don’t think that would make it any less thrilling.”

“Kiss me,” Bruce demands, hands locking tighter around Jerome’s wrist. Jerome complies immediately, open-mouthed and eager, and when he pulls back Bruce pushes the knife away from his neck. Jerome’s eyes spark in brief confusion, at least until Bruce clamps his knees around Jerome’s hips and rolls.

Jerome flat on his back underneath him, eyes filled with a familiar, uncanny light. His pupils are blown. He’s hard. The flat of the knife grazes a path down Bruce’s ribs; the touch of it is gentle, like the caress of a lover. 

Bruce settles astride him, lower than he had been in the maze. Instead of his knees pressing against the sides of Jerome’s waist they press into his hips. When he brings himself flush against Jerome their cocks slide together and he shudders, unable to resist the urge to look down at them.

—bent over the vanity, so, so full. Just one of Jerome’s fingers inside of him had felt like almost too much, and two had been enough to leave him sore, shaking, and speechless. What would—

“That’s it,” Jerome praises, he sounds like he’s already on the verge. Bruce’s skin prinks and his heart races at the deliberate phrase and tone of voice. “Let it out.”

Bruce cannot hurt Jerome the way that he dreams of hurting him in the maze. That doesn’t mean he cannot do anything. 

Bruce’s hands come down on Jerome’s chest. They creep up towards his neck. He feels a slight scratch, the tip of the knife resting against his unprotected stomach.

His fingers start to curl around Jerome’s throat. It’s beautiful, in a way. 

Ruination is more appealing than he thought it would be. 

“Let it out,” Jerome says again, adoringly, and Bruce feels something inside of himself begin to deteriorate. Let it out, let it out, let it out. Let out all of the things that Bruce had locked away inside of himself, too ashamed and too afraid to let anyone see. Jerome’s chest hitches when Bruce’s fingers flex. “That’s it, Bruce, that’s it,” he encourages.

He doesn’t have to be ashamed or afraid, here, because Jerome has already seen him at his worst. Jerome accepts him at his worst. Jerome _likes_ him at his worst.

Bruce rocks against him, slowly at first. Each motion of his hips sets his skin alight for more than one reason. Jerome is looking up at him like he’d burn the world down for Bruce. Jerome is shifting to grind up against him, Bruce rising and falling with each movement in a way that makes his thoughts stutter on what it would feel like if he were _full_. Every little action makes Jerome’s knife scratch against him, barely there but also completely impossible to ignore. His hands wrap tighter and Jerome’s eyelashes flutter, though he’s too intent on watching Bruce to close his eyes. Bruce is vicious and brutal, filled to the brim with dark potential, and usually he hates that part of himself but he can’t, not now, not like this. Everything feels dangerous and somehow faultless. Like it suits them. Like this is how they’re meant to be. Like the broken, distorted parts of them mirror each other and if they twist themselves the right way they’ll fit together; perfect and preordained. 

It’s very nearly romantic.

Behind his ribs Bruce’s heart trips into a swift, steady rhythm. 

Underneath him Jerome’s free hand wraps tightly around them both.

Everything builds rapidly; Bruce’s rocking becomes shaky and sloppy, Jerome’s hand—soft palm, rough fingertips, big and dangerous and so, so capable of terrible, terrible things—drags around them unsteadily, forcing them close in a way that is too much to bear for too long.

“That’s it, that’s it,” Jerome rasps under his breath as Bruce’s entire body begins to tense—including the hands ringing Jerome’s neck. Jerome looks so pleased, so eager for his breath to be stolen by Bruce, he looks so much like he does in the maze that Bruce cannot resist the urge to lean down to him.

The brush of their lips is feather-light. 

The strangling grip of Bruce’s hands is not. 

The pressure escalating inside of Bruce breaks. He rocks into Jerome’s fist, he arcs his spine, Jerome’s murmured, raspy praise spurs him on as he starts to peak. 

Makes his fingers clench harder, leaving Jerome unable to take in a breath. 

“Please,” he is vaguely aware of himself saying. “I want you to, I want you to.”

Jerome can’t make any noise apart from an unintelligible, strangled murmur as he comes, body seizing underneath Bruce. Bruce’s hands fall away from his neck to press against his chest as Bruce leans in to kiss his gasping mouth. 

Afterwards they are both left panting, staring each other down as if taken surprise. Bruce’s fingers twitch against Jerome’s chest, and Jerome makes a low, curious sort of sound. Bruce waits for—regret, self-loathing, disbelief that he’d let himself _choke_ anyone, even someone who _wanted_ it—negativity to wash over him now that the madness that Jerome so effortlessly seemed to spark inside of him has been washed out. But as Jerome lifts a hand to his face, thumb tracing the cut left by his knife, guiding him down into another kiss that feels soft, like their kisses had been at the beginning, all Bruce is capable of feeling is a bone-deep tiredness and a warm satisfaction.

They both got what they wanted tonight; Bruce has finally experienced the things which have driven him crazy in dreams, and Jerome has lodged himself so firmly in Bruce’s head that he’ll never be forgotten. 

And this was only just the beginning. Next time…

Next time…

Bruce feels himself begin to go slack, and Jerome laughs softly against his mouth.

“Too much for you?” He asks, tone sugary-sweet; just as affectionate as it is mocking. 

Bruce pinches him hard. Jerome gasps, though Bruce suspects it’s more for the drama than anything else because he laughs even more under his breath afterwards. 

“Come on.” His arms curl around Bruce and he twists. Bruce’s body thumps beside him in the bed. Jerome tugs him closer and hooks a leg over his own, leaving Bruce enfolded by him completely. It makes him feel pleasantly wanted. And who else was there, on this earth, who would want him so wholly? Who else would want the parts that he himself wanted so badly to stay hidden away; his tightly reined viciousness and brutality and the consuming burn of his anger? “You look like you’re about to pass out, darlin’. Wanna crash here?”

A very, very distant whisper in Bruce’s mind is saying that continuing to lay here would be the most dangerous thing that he’s done so far. He wants to keep you, keep you, keep you, it echoes. Bruce shuts his eyes and ignores it, resting his head in the crook of Jerome’s neck. Jerome’s hand comes up to pet his hair and the slight trembling is back, just like in the car.

Bruce presses a soft kiss to the skin laid out before his mouth. 

“I’ll stay,” he says.

The trembling stops. 

x-x-x

Bruce doesn’t have any sort of preconceived notion about what waking up beside Jerome is going to be like. It’s not something that he’s ever dreamed of, so how would an impossible situation like it even implant itself in his head to be wondered about in the first place? 

It’s unexpectedly nice. He feels a little smile pull at his lips. The corner of his mouth twinges, but he’s unbothered by the lingering ache. If anything he’s happy that it’s lingering.

Bruce takes a moment to gather himself—and maybe to find a slight amusement the way that Jerome had pressed even closer to him in his sleep, as if even when he was unconscious he wasn’t able to keep himself from intruding into Bruce’s space, which was turning out to be very par for the course for him—before he starts to gently slip out of Jerome’s arms. It’s dark, and when he pushes aside a sheet to look through the window he can only see the faintest hint of sunrise at the horizon. 

He dresses in his crumpled clothes quietly, he moves over to the stairs to push them down into the room below, he turns back to look at Jerome, and he finds he can’t leave as if he’s slinking away after a one-night stand. Would it be rude to not say goodbye, he asks himself, and he only feels a little ridiculous for thinking it. But good manners are not the only thing making him waver when the reasonable, normal thing to do in a situation like this would be to escape as quickly as possible and call the police before Jerome’s Maniax have a chance to raze this place to the ground.

If Jerome tries to keep him, Bruce will get away somehow. He’s fast, he’s quiet, he’s clever. His hands aren’t even tied behind his back anymore. 

He backtracks, settling down on the bed beside him. Jerome looks peaceful in sleep in a way that he never looks when he’s awake—too full of manic energy and mad plans to stay still for long. Bruce wonders if he’s dreaming, and if so what he’s dreaming of.

He wonders if it’s him.

He leans down to press a kiss to Jerome’s forehead. The healing cut along the center of his lower lip stings. Jerome stirs, but his eyes don’t open.

I’ve got to go, he reminds himself, before missing posters with my face on them are plastered all over the city. He looks down at Jerome’s sleeping face and feels a flutter of—

— _something._

He spots the folded switchblade laid out at the top corner of the bed, mostly concealed by Jerome’s pillow, and he doesn’t resist the impulsive desire to reach out and grasp the handle.

It feels right, laid out in his hand. A little piece of Jerome to be held onto. To be kept. He has a brief, fanciful thought of cutting a lock of his hair for Jerome to keep, but that’s even more ridiculous than him thinking it would be rude not to say goodbye to the criminal who’d had no qualms about stealing Bruce away. And something tells him that Jerome wouldn’t be satisfied by a mere lock of hair.

Something twists fretfully inside of him; kept, kept, kept.

I want you to, I want you to, I want you to. 

He needs to go. He needs to get out of here before he spins out of control. His gaze falls away from the knife—

Jerome’s eyes are half-open, staring up at him, and Bruce’s breath catches.

“I’m taking this,” he blurts, holding the switchblade up for Jerome to see and contemplating—an anxious mix of cold, hot, dread, want churning inside of him—what he’d do if Jerome reached out for him. “If you want it, you’ll have to steal it back from me.”

“Thief,” Jerome chides fondly, making no move to spring out of bed and grab onto Bruce. He _would_ find pleasure in Bruce committing petty theft. “That’s a _gateway crime_ , Bruce. Next thing you know you’ll be—”

Bruce kisses him; just a swift, fleeting press of lips, but it shuts him up better than threats or attempted provocations ever did. Jerome looks dazed in the wake of it. 

It makes Bruce feel brazenly confident, a fun switch from the all-consuming shame that he’d been drowning in before. Giving in had been… Volatile in the greatest of ways. There had been something powerful about it; unleashing parts of himself that he’d kept secret for so long. A longing that has been sated lurks underneath his skin, quiet for now, and there’s something freeing about that. He starts to draw back, and a strange, playful urge overtakes him. 

He gives into it.

Bruce reaches out, softly ruffling Jerome’s hair.

“Tag,” he says before he starts to make his way to the stairs. “You’re it.”

Jerome’s delighted laughter echoes behind him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for dropping by! <3


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